'One can see as much as that without words.What is it that you fear? What can the man do to you? What matter is it to you if such a one as that pours out his malice on you? Let it run off like the rain from the housetops.You are too big even to be stung by such a reptile as that.' He looked into her face, admiring the energy with which she spoke to him.'As for answering him,'she continued to say, 'that may or may not be proper.If it should be done, there are people to do it.But Iam speaking of your own inner self.You have a shield against your equals, and a sword to attack them with if necessary.Have you no armour of proof against such a creature as that? Have you nothing inside you to make you feel that he is too contemptible to be regarded?'
'Nothing.'
'Oh, Plantagenet!'
'Cora, there a different natures which have each their own excellencies, and their own defects.I will not admit that I am a coward, believing as I do that I could dare to face necessary danger.But I cannot endure to have my character impugned,--even by Mr Lopez.'
'What matter,--if you are in the right? Why blench if your conscience accuses you of no fault? I would not blench if it did.What,--is a man to be put in the front of everything, and then to be judged as though he could give all his time to the picking of his steps?'
'Just so! And he must pick them more warily than another.'
'I do not believe it.You see all this with jaundiced eyes.Iread somewhere the other day that the great ships have always little worms attached to them, but that the great ships swim on and know nothing of the worms.'
'The worms conquer at last.'
'They shouldn't conquer me! After all, what is it that they say about the money? That you ought not to have had it?'
'I begin to think I was wrong to pay it.'
'You certainly were not wrong.I had led the man on.I had been mistaken.I had thought he was a gentleman.Having led him on at first, before you had spoken to me, I did not like to go back from my word.I did go to the man at Silverbridge who sells the pots, and no doubt the man, when thus encouraged, told it all to Lopez.When Lopez went to the town he did suppose that he would have what the people call the Castle interest.'
'And I had done so much to prevent it.'
'What's the use of going back on that now, unless you want me to put my neck down to be trodden on? I am confessing my own sins as fast as I can.'
'God knows I would not have trodden on you.'
'I am willing,--if it be necessary.Then came the question;--as I had done this evil, how was it to be rectified? Any man with a particle of spirit would have taken his rubs and said nothing about it.But as this man asked for the money, it was right that he should have it.If it is all made public he won't get very well out of it.'
'What does that matter to me?'
'Nor shall I;--only luckily I do not mind it.'
'But I mind it for you.'
'You must throw me to the whale.Let somebody say in so many words that the Duchess did so and so.It was very wicked no doubt; but they can't kill me,--nor yet dismiss me.And I won't resign.In point of fact I shan't be a penny the worse for it.'
'But I should resign.'
'If all the Ministers of England were to give up as soon as their wives do foolish things, that question about Queen's Government would become very difficult.'
'They may do foolish things, dear; and yet--'
'And yet what?'
'And yet not interfere in politics.'
'That's all you know about it, Plantagenet.Doesn't everybody know that Mrs Daubney got Dr MacFuzlem made a bishop, and that Mrs Gresham got her husband to make that hazy speech about women's rights, so that nobody should know which way he meant to go? There are others just as bad as me, only I don't think they got blown up so much.You do now as I ask you.'
'I couldn't do it, Cora.Though the stain were but a little spot, and the thing to be avoided political destruction, I could not ride out of the punishment by fixing that stain upon my wife.
I will not have your name mentioned.A man's wife should be talked about by no one.'
'That's highfaluting, Plantagenet.'
'Glencora, in these matters you must allow me to judge for myself, and I will judge.I will never say that I didn't do it;--but that it was my wife who did.'
'Adam said so,--because he chose to tell the truth.'
'And Adam has been despised ever since,--not because he ate the apple, but because he imputed the eating of it to a woman.Iwill not do it.We have had enough of this now.' Then she turned to go away;--but he called her back.'Kiss me, dear,' he said.Then she stooped over him and kissed him.'Do not think Iam angry with you because the thing vexes me.I am dreaming always of some day when we may go away together with the children, and rest in some pretty spot, and live as other people live.'
'It would be very stupid,' she muttered to herself as she left the room.
He did to up to town for the Cabinet meeting.Whatever may have been done at that august assembly there was certainly no resignation, or the world would have heard it.It is probable, too, that nothing was said about these newspaper articles.
Things if left to themselves will generally die at last.The old Duke and Phineas Finn and Barrington Erle were all of the opinion that the best plan for the present was to do nothing.'Has anything been settled?' The Duchess asked Phineas when he came back.
'Oh yes;--the Queen's Speech.But there isn't very much in it.'
'But about the payment of this money?'
'I haven't heard a word about it,' said Phineas.
'You're just as bad as all the rest, Mr Finn, with your pretended secrecy.A girl with her sweetheart isn't half so fussy as a young Cabinet Minister.'
'The Cabinet Ministers get used to it sooner, I think,' said Phineas Finn.
